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Coach · Sparring partner · Interim manager

Stop firefighting. Start delivering.

Escalations every week. Priorities that change before they have reached the team. Commitments no one believes any more. Everyone is working flat out – and delivery still isn’t reliable.

I help leaders in software and IT organisations get their teams out of this mode: with settled priorities, steady routines and ownership where it belongs.

Book an intro callHow I work

Urgent? If a leadership role is vacant or a client is threatening consequences, I can step in for interim management at short notice. Call me directly: +49 7275 4024 999.

Today

  • Constant escalations
  • Shifting priorities
  • Commitments nobody trusts

The goal

Fewer fires. Commitments that hold. Time for strategy and better products.

Where you are

What brings you here?

  • A leadership role is vacant

    I take on the responsibility for a defined period, stabilise the area and develop a successor.

    Interim management

  • New to a leadership role

    Get clear on what comes first before day-to-day pressure decides for you. Start with the Clarity package: five sessions.

    Coaching

  • Delivery is stuck

    First understand where things get stuck: an outside view of your organisation in two weeks. Sparring afterwards, if you like.

    Taking stock

  • Coaching for your leaders

    For HR and people development: a three-way contract, clear confidentiality and a joint review.

    Coaching commissioned by your company

The WerteWirker approach

Solve problems where they start

No bloated programmes, no new bureaucracy. A few routines that take the pressure off quickly.

First understand where work gets stuck

More governance and better slide decks don’t make an organisation any better at delivering. What matters is how software actually gets built, and where that work gets stuck. That is where I start.

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To do that, I look at how the work really flows: from requirement to operations, including incidents, technical dependencies, quality and the way decisions get made. Where the most effective lever lies is something we then work out together – and it is not always where the reflex points.

I am not part of your system. That is why I can ask the uncomfortable questions, including the politically awkward ones. The causes rarely lie in the processes; those are often well documented. They lie in the well-worn workarounds that have grown up around the official routes, for good reasons. Only you and your teams can change that. Without you, I achieve nothing.

Confident decisions when plans keep shifting

Markets move faster, dependencies multiply, plans go out of date sooner. That is no longer the exception; it is the norm. The usual reflex is more control, more alignment meetings, more reporting. That is exactly what adds to the turmoil.

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What holds up is clarity about what comes first when two goals collide. That takes unambiguous goals, agreed ownership and decision rules that still apply under pressure. It applies when the pressure comes from above, too: the board decides on an AI initiative, and you are expected to deliver before anyone knows whether or how it fits your area. This is where values get practical: as the yardstick your team decides by when you’re not in the room.

The result: fewer snap decisions. Everyone can see why a decision was made, and a change of course no longer upends everything.

A sparring partner, not a ready-made solution

At the top, there is often no place for an honest conversation. Inside the company, every conversation is also politics: everyone has a position to defend. External consultants have a solution to sell. I have neither.

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With your boss you want to appear in command, with your team confident, and your peers have interests of their own. In sparring you have no need to justify yourself: you get someone outside your company to test your thinking against. We untangle the issues, check assumptions and prepare decisions. No methodology dogma – what fits depends on your situation.

My role has two sides: backing when things are uncertain, and plain speaking when clarity is being avoided. Reflection isn’t an end in itself. It leads to a decision you can defend, inside your organisation and beyond it.

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The name WerteWirker

What values have to do with firefighting

“As leaders, we create our impact through the values we lead by. Where they are missing, that impact fizzles out.”
Karsten Zimmer

An example: your strategy is ‘cloud first’. Then something catches fire, and an on-premises fix would go live sooner. What applies now? If that is unsettled, it gets renegotiated in every escalation. There is no manual for decisions like this. Under pressure, people decide by what really matters to them. That is their set of values: the answer to the question of what comes first when two goals collide. Deadline or quality? Speed or reliability? The glossy poster of company values in the office kitchen changes none of that: what counts is what people actually live by.

WerteWirker is a coined German word: Werte means values, wirken means to have an impact. When impact fizzles out, there is lots of work and little to show for it. That is exactly what firefighting feels like.

That is where my work starts. I am a values-based systemic coach (systemic meaning I look at the whole organisation around a person, not just the person), and I have led software organisations myself. Together we clarify the values you lead by – your own and those of your leadership team – and turn them into priorities, decision rules and routines. The result is a handful of rules for when it counts, rules that everyone involved can understand. They let you stick to an agreed strategy even under pressure. For the example above, the rule might be: consistency over speed. So ‘cloud first’ still applies, even when on-premises would be quicker.

Impact through values – hence the name.

More about me and my background

Impact

What changes for you

When priorities stick and ownership is agreed, you’ll notice it in your own calendar first: fewer escalations, fewer emergencies, more time for the job you’re there to do.

  • Commitments that hold

    Clear priorities make sure that what was promised gets delivered. That builds trust: with senior management, the business and your customers.

  • A calmer working week

    Escalations, ad-hoc decisions and endless alignment meetings tail off. You lead again instead of fighting fires.

  • Less friction

    Agreed roles and handovers end the ping-pong between business, engineering and operations: every issue has an owner, and the business gets answers instead of being passed along. And you no longer have to act as the go-between.

  • In short: you regain calm, a clear view and room to decide.

From the field

From one release in two years to several an hour

The starting point at a large provider of digital consumer services: more than ten development teams, with every role from product management to operations. One laborious release every two years. More than 10,000 open bugs, and a dozen people doing nothing but managing the bug list. New features had stopped arriving, and so had a redesign that had been planned for two years.

The approach: I joined as a coach for the leaders and the organisation, and later took line responsibility for development. From the values the organisation actually lived by, we derived a clear set of rules. With those rules, the organisation could stick to its strategic roadmap for the first time, and the order of the features was settled. Where expertise was missing, we brought in outside experts and paired them with in-house staff who could pass the knowledge on, so that it stayed in the company.

The results, within 24 months: features were being delivered again – the first ones after just a few weeks. Reported bugs were fixed in under 72 hours on average. That freed up a team for the redesign towards microservices, which was completed in eight months. One release every two years became production deployments several times an hour on average: automatically integrated, tested and deployed (CI/CD). The rest of the company noticed, too: sales got reliable delivery dates, marketing could plan, customer service breathed a sigh of relief.

Track record

What clients say

Testimonials translated from German. A reference call can be arranged on request.

  • The collaboration brought structure to a very turbulent phase. Goals, responsibilities and routines were sharpened without adding bureaucracy. That helped not only me but the entire leadership team.
    Managing DirectorTechnology company
    Topics like prioritisation, interfaces and decision formats weren’t discussed in theory but resolved pragmatically. Our delivery capability has stabilised significantly as a result.
    CTOAutomotive industry
    You have mastered the balancing act of taking away every employee’s fears and concerns about the new method while still challenging them to change.
    CEOOnline dating company
    Working together helped me see complex situations more clearly and decide on a sounder basis. Instead of quick fixes, it was about orientation that lasts. It made my leadership noticeably calmer and more effective – even under high pressure.
    Managing DirectorMid-sized mechanical engineering company
    I experienced the coaching as clear, challenging and at the same time very respectful. It wasn’t about handing me answers but about asking the right questions. That let me prepare my own decisions better and take ownership of them.
    Career coaching → CTOHardware development
    His clear and authentic communication, his inspiring manner and his ability to adapt to the needs of projects and people as the situation required were decisive for the success and the significant efficiency gains of the teams.
    Lysann SlabyPeople & Change Manager, Schwarz Group
    Karsten helped me reach my goals in a very short time and stay focused on them.
    CTODigital company
    Management was kept clearly informed at all times and cleverly involved in the process, which ensured real transparency on the project.
    CEOOnline dating company
    I have worked with Karsten over the past few years. He helped me a great deal in finding solutions to various problems I had. He has definitely made an important contribution to my career development, which I will always appreciate.
    CEO & CTOTech start-up
    Karsten helped me trust my own abilities more. It was easy for me to accept his process-driven guidance. He helped me develop the tools I needed to convince others of my skills. I can highly recommend him.
    Software ArchitectMedia group

The testimonials are real. All but one of the names are left out at the request of those involved. In Germany, leaders who bring in a coach or sparring partner rarely make that public – not yet.

Organisations I’ve worked for

  • Deutsche Bank
  • Bosch
  • Vodafone
  • MediaMarktSaturn
  • Schwarz Gruppe
  • Springer Nature
  • University of Oxford
  • NATO
  • Holtzbrinck Publishing Group
  • ERGO
  • Gothaer
  • Techem
  • Scout24
  • LV 1871
  • Nature
  • Macmillan
  • VZ
  • CONET
  • ISB
  • ComBOTS
  • devbliss

The first step out of firefighting mode

The intro call is free, takes about 30 minutes and commits you to nothing. You describe your situation. We look at where it hurts most and where it is worth starting.

You get an outside view and a straight answer on whether I can help, and if so how. No sales pressure. No promises nobody can keep.

Book an intro call

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